Shigetaka Kurita

is a Japanese interface designer often cited for his early work with emoji sets. Many refer to him as the creator of the emoji, a claim that has been corrected and clarified in recent years. He was part of the team that created one of the first emojis used solely for communication, a heart-shaped pictogram that appeared on an NTT DoCoMo pager aimed at teenagers. It went on to become the Red Heart emoji.

This development and the aftermath of its use led Kurita to design a set of 176 colored emojis. Many of the general-use emojis used today by Unicode can be traced back to Kurita's set. He now works for Dwango Co. Ltd., a Japanese game company owned by Kadokawa Dwango Corporation.

The NTT DoCoMo emoji set he created is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

In interviews, Kurita said this experience left him and others at NTT DoCoMo knowing that symbols had to be part of future texting and communication services. For NTT DoCoMo's upcoming mobile system i-mode, it was decided that Kurita should design a set of pictograms, which could be used as characters on the new operating system.

NTT DoCoMo emoji set Kurita started designing an emoji set that could be used alongside the NTT DoCoMo heart emoji. He designed a set of 176 pictograms using a grid of 12x12 pixels that eventually started a global trend in the use of pictograms to communicate ideas through text messages. Chinese characters and street signs.

One of the most notable changes to other telecom companies that had started experimenting with emojis was the use and diversity of color in the set. Aside from basic numbers and shapes, the majority of the 176 emoji set contained color. The famous DTT DoCoMo heart remained as part of the set and was red. General-use emojis, such as sports, actions and weather, can easily be traced back to Kurita's emoji set. The yellow-faced emojis commonly used today evolved from other emoticon sets and cannot be traced back to Kurita's work.

In 2016, the original set of 176 emojis was added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and was exhibited in the exhibition Inbox: The Original Emoji, by Shigetaka Kurita.

In 2025, Kurita's original DoCoMo emojis were included in the MoMA's Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, an exhibition featuring "widely recognized design icons [...] highlighting pivotal moments in design history."